Arent there other tests that could detect colon cancer? The thought of a colonoscopy makes me nervous.
Sure there are, but not all screening techniques are equal. At a minimum, each man and woman should have an annual fecal occult blood test (FOBT), which uses a smear of stool on a specially treated card, with their primary care physician plus a flexible sigmoidoscopy (which looks at a short segment of the bowel) every three to five years or a colonoscopy every ten years. A patient might have a negative FOBT but have precancerous or cancerous growths in the colon. A sigmoidoscopy detects cancers with 45% less accuracy than a colonoscopy. A barium enema, done in the Radiology department, detects only 30-50% of cancers compared to a colonoscopy.
